Death and Smell

 In Chapter 6 of The Aroma of Righteousness by Deborah Green, she talks about how smell can be thought of as being attached to the dead. I have never thought of smell in this way before. If we're talking about smell being linked to death in a literal sense, I'm not sure if it's something I relate to. If death doesn't smell like a rotting corpse or food gone bad, then I associate death with silence, a lack of smell, a lack of a person. Whenever I smell something that reminds me of one of my passed-on loved ones, I don't think to myself, "Oh, that reminds me of my dead loved one." Instead, I think, "Oh, now I miss them. I remember how that's how they smelled when they were still here..." or, "This smell reminds me of this memory we both shared before they were gone." I don't have a very pleasant outlook on death, however. Perhaps if I was a part of a religion that connected death with anointments and fumigation and pleasant smells, then I could have an easier time linking death to a nice scent.

I think, however, that I am able to understand what Green is saying when she talks about smells being linked to death in the ways that smells are so nostalgic. There is a kind of death in a moment that has passed and cannot be brought back. The word "death" is such a powerful and negative word in my opinion, but it is true: the things that we are nostalgic for are, in a sense, dead. We cannot return to our childhoods. Even if we try to go back to our favorite spot on the playground, we can almost never truly return to our memory of it because it is stored in the depths of our minds as its most perfect version. 

When I was very, very little, my oldest brother worked at Cinnabon. I have never physically been to Cinnabon in my life, but when he would return home from the morning shift, he would have boxes of cinnamon buns to give out to our family. I was so little at the time, maybe around three or four years old, so trying these cinnamon buns would have been my first experience with cinnamon buns in my entire life. So, naturally, I remember the Cinnabon cinnamon buns as the most incredible pastries on the entire planet. Every time I eat a cinnamon bun now, it never can compare to this image of the "perfect" cinnamon bun I have inscribed on my mind. I'm sure that even if I were to eat a Cinnabon cinnamon bun now, even it would not match what I'm hoping for.

There is something about smell, however, that I think can somehow take us right back to specific memories perfectly. I'm sure it would have to depend on the smell I suppose, but there are certain moments when I spray my perfume on myself now, the one I put on every single day, and I am still transported to certain, weird, life-changing days in sophomore year, which was the year I first began wearing this certain perfume. When I go back home during breaks, my parents still stock my shower with the same brand of shampoo and conditioner that I used to use in freshman year. It was in that year, however, that I lost my big brother, Connor. My professors were kind and told me to take around two weeks or so off class, which resulted in me sitting in my room alone most days, sleeping in, and taking very long showers where I'd listen to quiet music and just think. And the smell of that shampoo brings me back to those long showers, which were the only forms of self-care I gave to myself in the few days after my brother had passed away. It's like I'm back there whenever I use that shampoo and conditioner. It seems almost impossible to confuse or distort those kinds of life-changing scents. They're like invisible teleportation devices.

Are those moments that smell brings back to us truly dead, however? Or do they live on in smell? Those memories feel real and alive whenever I smell the scents that are attached to them. I still would struggle to say that death has a pleasant smell because I would never associate it with perfume or oils. But, I think there is something pleasant about a smell that ties us back to a passed on time.